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Upcoming Seminars


FRIDAY, February 8, 2008


        COMPUTATIONAL AND APPLIED MATHEMATICS PROSEMINAR
                                                     PSA 206   3:15 p.m.
        Aaron Luttman, Bethany Lutheran College
          "Inverse Problems for Botanical and Astronomical Image
           Analysis"
        ABSTRACT: Many image analysis problems are formulated as
        inverse problems, where the goal is to minimize a particular
        energy functional over some set of allowable functions. Two
        such problems are image segmentation and image deblurring. In
        botany it is useful to capture image data of leaves as they
        fluoresce in the infra-red, and the goal is to segment the
        videos or images into regions of fluorescence and non-
        fluorescence. The botanical problem will be described as well
        a variational technique with numerical methods for video
        segmentation in this context.
          Astronomical data measured from the ground is blurred as it
        passes through the atmosphere, and this effect must be reversed
        in order to analyze the data. This deblurring is formulated as
        an inverse problem, and we present theoretical analysis and
        numerical results demonstrating that Poisson negative log-
        likelihood estimation can be used to reconstruct such
        astronomical data when regularized using the total variation of
        the reconstruction.

MONDAY, February 11, 2008


        COLLOQUIUM (FACULTY CANDIDATE)               PSA 206   3:30 p.m.
        Luan Hoang, University of Minnesota
          "Some Problems in Geophysical Fluid Dynamics"
        ABSTRACT: We study mathematical problems in geophysical fluid
        dynamics. The Navier-Stokes equations in thin domains are used
        to model the motion of fluids in the atmosphere and oceans. The
        domain considered here has depth of order \varepsilon as
        \varepsilon \to 0. The velocity field is subject to the Navier
        boundary conditions on the non-flat top and bottom boundaries.
        Roughly speaking, we show that for appropriate forces, if the
        H^1 norm of initial velocity is O(\varepsilon^{-\frac{1}{2}})
        as \varepsilon \to 0, then there exists a unique strong solution
        for all time. We also discuss similar results for Boussinesq
        equations of the oceans which contain the additional unknown
        temperature and salinity concentration. Our proofs rely on the
        study of the dependence of the Stokes operator on \varepsilon,
        and the non-linear estimate which has to deal with the non-
        trivial contributions of the boundary integrals connected with
        the boundary conditions.
          This is a joint work with George Sell.
                Refreshments will be served in PSA 206 at 3:15 p.m.

TUESDAY, February 12, 2008


        APPLIED ANALYSIS AND PDE READING SEMINAR     PSA 546   3:00 p.m.
          For more information, contact Svetlana Roudenko.

WEDNESDAY, February 13, 2008


        MATHEMATICA WORKSHOP                         ECA 225   3:00 p.m.
          Joel Klein, Kernel Developer, Wolfram Research
          "Mathematica 6 in Education and Research"
        This talk illustrates capabilities in Mathematica 6 that are
        directly applicable for use in teaching and research on campus.
        Topics of this technical talk include:
          * 2D and 3D visualization
          * Dynamic interactivity
          * On-demand scientific data
          * Example-driven course materials
          * Symbolic interface construction
          * Practical and theoretical applications
        Current users will benefit from seeing the many improvements
        and new features of Mathematica 6
        (http://www.wolfram.com/mathematica/newin6), but prior
        knowledge of Mathematica is not required.
          The workshop is open to the ASU community. There will be a
        "questions and answers" session at the end of the workshop.

THURSDAY, February 14, 2008


        COMPUTATIONAL AND APPLIED MATHEMATICS PROSEMINAR
                                                    PSA 206   12:15 p.m.
        Rishu Saxena, Department of Mathematics and Statistics
          "High-Order Edge Detection from Scattered Data" (Oral Exam)
        ABSTRACT: Detection of edges in piecewise smooth functions is
        important in many applications such as image processing,
        computer vision and seismology. Unfortunately, most of the
        algorithms available until recently are first order and depend
        on external factors such as the choice of appropriate filters
        and thresholds. Further, their use is mostly limited to digital
        images. On the other hand, extensive research has been done for
        high order methods in the Numerical Partial Differential
        Equations community.
          The polynomial annihilation edge detection method (Archibald,
        Gelb and Yoon, 2005) was the first attempt to make edge
        detection a high order venture from physical data. The method
        has several advantages over already existing methods, the most
        important being that it is applicable to multi-dimensional
        scattered data. This talk discusses the polynomial annihilation
        edge detection method and then expands it for several
        applications, as needed not only in the field of image
        processing, but also in a broad range of other applications
        including determining edges in derivatives of functions for
        post processing partial differential equations as well as
        determining discontinuities in greater than three dimensions
        which arise in stochastic partial differential equations. The
        focus of this study is on functions that are continuous but not
        smooth and are irregularly sampled.

FRIDAY, February 15, 2008


        MATH BIO SEMINAR                            ECG G237   3:40 p.m.
        Tom Andersen, University of Oslo, Norway
          "The Stoichiometry of Autotroph-Herbivore Systems - A Gentle
           Introduction"
        ABSTRACT: Starting from the original Lotka-Volterra model,
        biological realism will be introduced step by step until we
        reach at stoichiometrically explicit autotroph-herbivore model
        that is consistent with the principles of mass conservation and
        with basic animal physiology. Consequences for qualitative
        dynamics at each step will be illustrated by phase plane
        diagrams and nullcline analysis. Finally, we will consider some
        open issues arising for our current lack of knowledge about the
        strategies and options herbivores have for disposing excessive
        materials and conserving limiting ones.